Happy New Year

 The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig.  A profound read for me.  "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."  I will take this perspective into the 2023 year.  I can only see what is my perspective rather than what is really there in front of me.  I observe a person, situation, place, and see only from my past.  I don't see all that is there.  I see a monk who does not do housework and say, "He is lazy."  I discount his worth.  I judge.  How much of my past is filled with men who did not do housework or cook for others?  I will include myself and my own past in this.  I was a terrible housekeeper in my bachelor pads, seminary room, and other places I lived.  I did not cook for me or others.  So I can only see this monk from my own prism past.  I see in him the me I did not like.  I see him, not as he is but through me and my life.  So I will try to see what matters, to see the "more" of someone or situation.  And then see the me that matters with all the potential still within.  I just cleaned my room!  My Mom would be proud!!!  And I did it for me.  

Inside Out

 If you are thinking about making changes in your life in 2023, that is, in the outsides of your life, as in lifestyle, appearances, work, geography, all to improve something, escape something, obtain something, you might consider starting with the insides.  I believe the outsides will change if you do the inside work first.  Some of us need a "revolution of the heart," a phrase I like.  I came to this monastery more than 2 1/2 years ago.  It was an outside change.  I did not change from this move.  I have been working ever so slowly, fits and starts, on the insides.  I find that ever so slightly, the outsides of my life change.  The monastery is the same.  It has not moved.  But I am shifting within it, in the way I relate to the outsides and what goes in within me, emotionally, psychologically.  I still fall back to old behavior and thinking, but there are moments when I see the light of a better me.  So in 2023 I will keep on keeping on.  

Ego

 I often talk about letting go of ego, as if something called "Ego" really exists.  The ego is all about wants.  And wants are all about dualism.  There is me, the ego, and that which I want to make me happy, so I think.  What if the wants disappeared?  If we, for a moment had no wants, or any sense of a separate self, over against all else?  This is what one might glimpse for a moment now and again in deep meditation, contemplation.  It is a simple awareness.  It is not an "Aha, now I got it!"  The "It" would be dualism.  Now and again it happens to me.  It is after this moment I realize that the ego is not real.  It is the invention of wants.  That is why a simple life, or "voluntary poverty" of stuff, is often recommended.  But even having stuff is OK as long as you don't believe it will make you happy, at peace, content.  Love works best when we don't try to possess, control the "other."  Then there can be the seemingly magical moments of being one with someone not you.  Or are they you?

Next Year

Soon it will be 2023.  It will be an anniversary year for me.  My first parish, St. Leo the Great, in Aldine, Houston, Texas, was founded with two Paulist priests and a deacon in 1973.  So this will be the 50th Anniversary.  Most of the Paulists who worked there for the 20 years we ministered at St. Leo's are dead.  But I am still here, surely forgotten by all the current parishioners who have made great changes and improvements on what was founded from a 12 acre lot in the middle of not much else.  The parish was founded by the people who lived in Aldine, young family and single people in their first homes, young families.  These are the people who need to be recognized and many of them are still around in the Houston area.  The Marys, Frans, Stellas, Mildreds, Cathys, Beverlys Toms, and so on, I hope they will find out when the 50th Anniversary celebration is and ask the pastor to include these people as the Founders, and maybe include me who spent my first four years of ordination there and learned how to be a priest.  Then lets us Founder Folks gather together and party as only we know how!  Its in your court now Fran Walsh!   

Endurance

Patient endurance serves me well.  I used to get upset or fearful when people ignored me, were indifferent toward me, or were just unpleasant in their manner around me.  I was in no bodily danger.  So why the fuss?  I am not in charge of their changing.  I am not God.  I am in charge of me becoming a better person.  The difficult people in my life can be a challenge for my own growth from fear to patient endurance.  This moves beyond acceptance.  In a marathon, for instance, I can accept that the distance is 26.2 miles.  But that does not run the marathon.  Patient endurance, step by step, is what brings me to complete the run.  Spiritual growth, freedom from addiction and a fear based life is a marathon.  There will be pain but also joy.  I have found it so.   

Storms

I try to not pray about the weather.  It is like praying that Nature not be itself.  Storms happen.  Blizzards happen.  I try to accept that this is so where I live.  I only pray to be kept safe in storms.  I know when they are coming given modern weather forecasting.  So I can prepare.  In the same way, I don't pray to be free of addiction or my bad habits.  They are what they are.  I pray rather to be kept safe from any harm they could do to me.  And to others as the case may be.  Some days, my dark side will be stormier.  But I have learned how to prepare for such soul weather.  Vigilance on the better days.  It is tough to go shopping for an umbrella when the storm is here.  Or to put up window shutters in the midst of a hurricane.   Interior storms will come, but I will be ready, with a little help.  

Christmas

For many people, Christmas Day is not a happy, warm fuzzy time.  It could be that they felt persecuted by Christianity and so this is a day to find something else to do.  But for many, there are bad memories or at least no happy ones.  I have seen persons sitting at a bar drinking by themself on Christmas afternoon.  Oblivion.  Some people go skiing just to get away from all the church stuff and hoopla.  I have discovered that a bad past does not neccessitate a likewise present.  Recovering alcoholics have turkey pot lucks in recovery rooms.  Acceptance.  My past was rather good, but it is still past.  I accept that and do not try to duplicate what cannot be repeated.  I look for what is now.  BE HERE NOW.  And I find so much in the present because I work on the present each day.  But maybe today can be the first day of a new present for someone.  They can stop wrestling their past, and look for, or ask for help from someone who knows how to transition.   

Christmas Eve

At the monastery in our Northern Hemisphere there is four hours less of Sunlight at this time of year than in late June.  So there is a lot more "eve" this short daylight.  Our sun sets here at 3:30 PM.  Plus, it is cold up here.  But I don't pray for warmer weather or more sunlight.  Cold and dark are givens.  What I do pray for is acceptance of what is given, and to look for its meaning and possibility in my life.  With acceptance I relax.  No energy wasted on complaints or whining.  So I rest inside in the warmth.  No running about outdoors.  Lots of quiet in the darkness if I stay in the dark.  The Christmas tree lights up beautifully the dark room.  Peace is around me and will enter into me if I wait, breathe it in.  Be still and  quiet.  Or I could run around to neighbors and friends with a bottle of champagne shouting, "Merry Christmas."  I think I will open to the quiet and the dark, the gift of this special Eve.  

Christmas Cards

 The longer one is out of sight, the fewer Christmas cards they will receive.  So it is said of monks in a monastery.  If you are not in the visual life of a person, they forget about you.  I think there is truth in this.  Recently dead people will receive more cards than a person holed  up "too" long in a remote monastery.  This will be my third Christmas here in the monastery.  Fewer people are actually sending out mailed Christmas cards.  So the mail is lighter.  Some do it electronically.  It is a season in which people are pressed for time.  The time is not so much used for meditating or reviewing their life in this season.  They are caught up in the frenzy of the culture.  But monks are not supposed to be bothered by the cobwebs in their mail box.  Why?  The monk is trying to be forgotten, more insignificant and ignored.  Like someone born in a stable who could not even get a room reservation in the cozy Inn of a small village.  Maybe shepherds will come visit me?

Being Small

 Earlier this morning I was into one of my fantasy trips where I rewrite my life to make me very important, significant and famous.  Then in the mass we sang out, "God of heaven and earth."  It occurred to me, a moment I grace, that the earth is a spec in the heavens, the universe, and that on this spec there are eight billion people.  And there are many other specs in this universe with billions of people too.  God is   in and over it all, yet comes to this spec of earth as a fragile human being, a real baby like all of us humans.  This is pretty humbling for such greatness to become so insignificant and unnoticed.  Hmmm.  Then in communion today, I receive a tiny wafer of bread, and it is God.  What a concept.  I am nothing and fantasize I am great.  God is great but comes to me as small.  No wonder that people who are striving for 'More" don't notice or believe that such a God exists.  Today I will work on being right-sized.  

Inside Out

 Drinking does not change the outsides, until it does.  But first it changes the insides.  A person may drink a lot because they don't like how people, places, situations are going on around them.  Nothing of that outside stuff changes, but the person drinking feels better, or oblivious, depending on how into their solution they are.  Then their insides begin to change, not just their physical health, but also character defects, ways of thinking and negativity.  Lots of bad moods, volatility.  Then the outsides do change.  Car wreaks, lost jobs, family, friends, income.  All gone.  So if I don't like the outsides, I try to work on my insides, my spiritual condition.  I like the Prayer of St. Francis.  

Silence

 There are various ways to be silent that have nothing to do with prayer or meditation.  I can be silent on a bus or walking down the street, or driving my car, but in these activities I am usually engaged with things, events of the world.  That is, I am thinking about stuff, or talking to myself, or even following a mental story in my head.  The silence of prayer that will deepen me is when I disengage from things of the world.  I stop focusing on outside stuff or stuff inside my mind.  Prayer will come naturally if I disengage from external activity or my focus on such externals.  We have an innate capacity for prayer, but we let our busy or crazy minds control us, so we don’t know this.  You can be still by not moving physically.  But the mind might be racing.  

Be Me

 The Jewish Torah says in Genesis that we are made in the image of God.  This view means that we have a natural affinity for God, the spiritual, when we are most our true self as we were created.  So why do so many people feel alienated from God, spirituality, and a sense of inner peace?  Because they are not being or becoming themself.  They are trying to be someone else in order to gain something that they have come to value.  It is usually wanting as valuable “more” of something. What or who we truly are simply is not enough, even if we knew who that is.  We don’t value the real self, so we try to find some other self that fits our wants.  I am really a nobody, that is, I am no other body or person.  But being me is not only enough, it is a daily deepening discovery.  

Racing

 When I see someone race by me, I don't start racing to catch up.  I let them go.  I am aware of their passing by, but don't pay them much attention.  The same with my racing mind.  It can take off in some ersatz direction, some insane thinking.  I note it, even watch it, but otherwise don't pay it much attention.  I try not to participate in the racing of my mind.  I might listen and say, "Oh, now you are being crazy mind."  I become my mind's second opinion, and when it hears that it is acting crazy, it seems to take note and stop the insane racing thoughts.  What energized me to give that second opinion, to even have another opinion besides insane thinking?  Recovery in a spiritual practice.  Practice every day, because I never know when insanity will show up.  

Recovering

 I have heard people say that they are "Recovering Catholics."  When I check into their catholic story it often reveals that they were not much of a Caholic to begin with.  They pretty much ignored worship, bible, moral principles of the teachings.  What they are recovering from is that they disagreed with someone(s), they did not like some leader, some politics, or hypocrisy.  Some people recover from AA for the same reasons, and their life is the worse for it.  They did not like what someone said, or how a meeting was led, or the hypocrisy of some people in the meetings, or no one talked to them.  I have all of this happen to me in the Catholic Church and in meetings.  But I have left neither.  And I am better for having stayed for the best that both offered.  I have found my God and it made all the difference.  

Growth

A child eats and drinks nourishment, but does not turn into an adult in a single day.  So too is it with prayer, service, spiritual growth, recovery.  We do these growth-oriented activities lest we go backward on a daily basis. But we don’t change for the better in any single day, and there may even be some setbacks from whatever selfish, childish, fearful life we used to live.  We know that we are growing if each day we realize and practice the nourishment we need.  Any child knows that it will be hungry if it does not eat.  Without food tomorrow will be worse.  “Become like children” is a wisdom saying.  Be vigilant and feed the interior life.  

Change

Why do people have so much trouble changing their behavior or their attitude?  They have the desire.  So what is missing?  The inside work that must go before the outsides will change.  Will power to change is not enough, especially if we have developed a bad habit or addiction.  Wanting is a start, yes.  But we have to work on the insides, the heart, with some meditation practice that has a "letting go" element to it.  Detach from our focus on what bothers us, what distracts us, what consumes us, that is, from the incessant attachment to the self.  It is not all about you.  The anxiety, worry, resentment, fear, obsessions, that chain you to misery will begin to lose their power.  Into the space made by this detachment comes some peace, serenity, and then the power to make the outside changes, the attitude changes.  You will see with new eyes and feel with a new heart.  

Faith III

 People who say they have lost their faith may never have had much if any to begin with.  What they have lost is something that fed their imagination, or their thinking mind, as in doctrine, or their warm feelings religious.  So I suggest they think about meditation since it is a manner of being that does not rely on or seek to please the imagination, the mind or feelings.  They don’t have to spend time letting go of deity images, since they are bereft of them anyway.  When I say God is No Thing, they can agree that god is nothing.  No Thing and nothing are not the same, but it is a start.  It is easier to meditate if you don’t have to let go of something, or even seek something.  You feel empty?  Good.  Meditation works with that.  Many people have gotten into recovery or into a deep spiritual life who  started out with “I lost my faith.”  They were lost and then they were found.  

Faith II

 Lots of churches have things in alcoves, windows, walls, that sustain the imagination that props up faith.  But such faith will not be sustained in times of emptiness, and when your life simply is not working out at all.  Yet many an adult runs to church or to their shrines to pray to someone to fix things.  They want a faith that appeals again to their feelings and imagination.  They say that they are bearing their cross, but they want someone to take it from them.  Jesus bore his own cross until he could not, but never asked anyone to help him.  He died alone, abandoned in feelings and imagination.  But he did not lose faith.  The contemplative knows this faith.  So does the Saint.  You let go of solutions and be in the emptiness.  It might be like Mary, the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene, at the cross of Jesus.  They had faith in this darkest of times.  

Faith

 The faith of a child will not sustain many a person once they reach their mid-teens.  Yet this is all most of them and adults get from organized religion.  A child is protected from a lot of harshness in life, or else it has not reached them yet.  We give them holy card images, warm fuzzy bible stories, statues, pictures, first holy communion and it sustains them in their imaginations.  By the age of 16 life can become harsh and stressful for a person.  What to to with my life?  Do I have loyal friends, fit in, am I handsome or pretty enough?  Childhood faith won’t sustain them, but they have little else, so we begin to hear then say, “I don’t want to go to church,” or “I have lost my faith.”  Childhood faith was filled with assurances.  That is not faith for an adult, if it is faith at all.  Faith is when you feel empty, abandoned, alone with yourself, unsure, and yet believe, as in “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  

The Review

 Did you ever go into your boss for a performance review?  I think it is what I do each evening before going to bed.  God is my boss and I am in for a performance review.  How did I do today God?  Usually, there is something to work on as well as some good things.  It never occurred to me that in meditation, when I stop thinking about myself and how I am doing, God might be asking me how God can do better so that I will know that I am loved?  I was brought up to believe that God is perfect, unchanging.  But then I was also taught and believe that God became human.  Well, that sure is a  change.  God is always trying to find a way to let me know that I am loved, not for my good deeds, which are inconsistent, but just for being me in all my humanness.  My God is humble enough for performance reviews.  And so I hope am I.  

Forgiveness.

When I forgive someone, I have a sense of hope.  It is an act of hope.  I realize that God is working in them somehow, or else I would not have much hope for their change.  When I refuse to forgive it is when I see the person as bad, and guilty.  I have no hope that they can change.  But regardless, if I can forgive someone, I set myself free of judgments, revenge, hate.  I am working on my change for the better.  Why should we both be stuck.   

Sober

 Why get sober if you are an addict?  One good reason that I do not often hear, is sobriety allows you the chance to become yourself.  You get “saved” to become you.  Whoever you were as a active addict was not really you.  Insane people are hardly themselves.  They might have been the life of the party because they could not deal with the loneliness of avoiding the struggle to grow up into their true self.  As incomplete as I might be in this journey, I am still alive to stay on the path.  Loneliness does not mean you are a failure.  It means you are human.  Addicts don’t like being human, and add insanity to their avoidance of the struggle.  So they try and destroy even the fake self.  

Oscars

 Before I went into the monastery where there is no TV, I used to like to watch the Oscars, awards for movie acting.  I admired the actors in the movies I saw.  Sane actors know they are acting.  The actor is playing a role.  It is a craft.  Unfortunately, there are people who are acting in real life.  There is no Oscar award for playing a part in real life that is not you.  You might make a living for awhile, or have a relationship for a while, but ultimately you will be a mess.  I tried to act like the priest I thought everyone wanted me to be.  I was popular and successful in what others called success.  But I was not me.  The priest part is good.  It is a real part of me.  But I no longer try to play a role to fit into other people’s wants.  And I try to keep my wants separated from my needs.  No awards worth having for trying to fit into other peoples’ wants.  

Hats

 I remember the 1950s.  Every man who wore a suit and tie went to work in an office wearing the same kind of hat.  It was a sort of “Man in the Grey Flannel Suit,” which was also a Gary Cooper movie.  Then no one wore hats because when JFK was inaugurated he did not wear a hat.  Then came the 60s and “rebellion.”  The immature person rebels by trying to be someone else, since they don’t know who they are yet or don’t want to be who they are.  Hats came back in.  You can easily try on different hats and “feel” like someone else.  Easier than trying on different dresses.  Rock star performers wore hats depending on who they wanted to be at that time.  Very commercial but outside of the money received, not very real.  Maybe that is why some of them did so much drugs.  It is depleting to try and be who you are not.  I am an average, blend in guy.  Hats won’t change that.  Be yourself.  It is a lifetime of growth to become who you always are.  

Faith

 Some people say about Faith, “Just believe.”  It is not so easy.  You cannot go from nothing to faith without some struggle.  No struggle, then no faith.  Faith is not certainty.  Nor is is magic.  It is relationship and all relationships take some struggle, sooner or later. Children might have instant faith, but as they grow physically and psychologically, emotionally, they will have doubt and struggle.  Otherwise they believe in infantile magic or else a surety about faith that cannot be effectively shared with other adults.  They can only convince children.  This is why pious parents(s) often have drop out children.  My faith grew from struggle and with people who struggled. 

First Things First

 You are an addict, addicted to something.  If you are to escape the addiction, you first have to stop it and get physical sobriety.  Your body stops the addictive intake.  That won’t last long if that is all you do.  Next, with the body healing, comes mental sobriety.  The fog clears up and you learn to listen to survivors, recovering people, and you begin to make some changes, such as being more helpful to others and not always thinking about yourself.  But there is more.  Next comes emotional sobriety and that goes on for a lifetime.  You have your ups and downs.  Your shortcomings, flaws in character have their moments.  This is normal life.  Normal is never constant bliss.  You want bliss?  If you have mental sobriety then you know constant bliss is not going to happen, short of death to which you were quickly hurrying when in full addiction.  Living normal is an everyday job.  It is called ongoing recovery.  

Whose Terms?

 There are people who choose to live life on their own terms.  They are self-focused.  They do not consult life for a vote or opinion.  And they suffer, because life prefers us to live life on life’s terms. You can have preferences, and pursue them, knowing that they are preferences but not guarantees.  You prefer to live somewhere.  You move and buy a place to live.  Life is going your way, right?  Then a tornado, a hurricane, a flood.  Ruination.  Life on life’s terms.  You are in great health, exercise and eat right.  You are disciplined.  Then you have a heart attack or find you have cancer.  Not your plan.  I have learned to have a lot of acceptance about how my life is working out.  I think I am where I am supposed to be, but not by my plans.  Such is life.  

Fear

 Many people are devoured by activities and strangled by attachments, as someone said.  What is behind this?  Fear, I believe.  Fear of being alone with oneself.  Such people tend to draw others into their activities, their promotions for good works and usefulness.  Such compulsions fail to develop us into our truer self, which does need some solitude and silence.  But also, there are others who flee the world out of fear or disgust.  They seek solitude as an escape, not as a place to be found and find their deeper self and Source.  Some think they “escape” to encounter God, but in fact, God is Love, and one who escapes life is not interested in Love.  They are not into love of others who they judge as “bad” or “wrong.”  The reason for solitude is to encounter oneself in all our foibles, to encounter a God of Love and Acceptance, and then to go forth and love others.  

Compare Or Contrast

 I have found that if I go to a meeting where I think about how I am better than so and so, or different from, then the purpose of the meeting loses its power, or I lose power.  When I leave, I will be no better off than when I entered. My problem or purpose of going to the meeting will continue to rule, haunt and control me.  When it comes to my problems or shortcomings, bad habits, I have to be tribal.  Zoom can help here if I cannot get out in person to go to a meeting.  I seem to lose my demons when I connect with others in our sameness, our similarities, our likeness as regards the reason I went to the meeting in the first place.  I am here because of my flaws, imperfections and at times my loneliness feelings.  The tribe mentality works wonders in this focus.  My demons are the losers.  I am the imperfect winner, and a more humble one.  

Small Town

So much of what I read from holy people of history is how they loved going to church or other places of worship.  Yet many nowadays feel a bit guilty about not going “out” but staying in and watching services or meetings on zoom.  But remember that most of history was of small towns and no automobiles.  People walked to their local meeting or worship place.  In the Bronx, in a blizzard, I could walk to church and did.  It took all of ten minutes in the worst of weather.  Nowadays, one might have to drive many miles and pay $5.00 for a gallon of gas, to get to their destination.  And in bad weather it might be quite unsafe.  Or you don’t drive anymore anyway.  So drop the guilt and shame.  Someday, people will write about how they grew in holiness and sobriety by zoom attendance.  And maybe listening to a great talk by ME!  Or maybe not.   

Forever Dawn

 I have a sense of my smallness when I look out at the stars before the dawn.  At the ocean especially, the clear sky can be the best.  While I have been sleeping or ignoring the Creator, the stars keep attending to their maker.  And when the dawn comes and passes I realize that it is only passing for me and for everyone on this small planet.  It is always dawn somewhere in this universe for God to enjoy.  There are many planets and many suns.  What gives me joy, solace, and peace is that this God would pay any attention to me.  As tepid  and thoughtless as I might be on any given day, God is here, patient and loving.  My God can be everywhere and yet right here.  So I won’t try so hard today to be important, but rather loving, and attentive to others even if they ignore me.  My smallness need not be an obstacle to love.  

Craziness

 Some people in addiction recovery tell me that they struggle with the acceptance of a Higher Power to restore them to sanity.  I think that they miss something that goes before the acceptance of a HP.  the second step says whatever they believe to be their HP will restore them to sanity.  So they first have to admit they are crazy.  Otherwise, what is this “restore to sanity” stuff about?  If you look down upon people who practice or believe in spiritual stuff and say, “Only crazy people believe in God!” Then you quality!  You are crazy.  You stuck yourself with needles, ingested mind altering stuff, so you are are crazy.  Should be a short step to accept the HP is working in your life.  

Equality

 I would not make too big a deal about equality.  In relationships I try not to focus on equality, or sharing equally, or being equal.  Why?  A relationship for me is all about changing me and not changing the other person.  People get married, or partner up with the idea that after they commit, then they will change the other person to suit themself.  In the monastery, I am not equal to the other monks.  I am not a monk. I don’t get to attend their community meetings.  I cook for them.  They do not cook for me.  I bake.  They eat.  So what?  They won’t change.  That is not why I am here with them.  I want to be changed on my insides.  No resentment.  No judgment.  Acceptance.  Humility.  Being of service.  They help me to become a better me, by just being themselves.  Priests who think they are better than the people they serve, just don’t get it.  To be subordinate has a lot of wisdom to it.  The ego disagrees.  

Alone

 Just because you are alone does not mean you are in solitude.  If you are by yourself, yet thinking you are better than others because of your “solitude” it is not solitude.  If you are alone thinking about yourself, comparing and contrasting yourself, you are simply isolated.  You may be merely resting from having to put up with others.  Solitude begins when you stop thinking about yourself in relation to others, when you begin to have humility for your shortcomings and begin to see how you can be of service to others.  Service will develop in your compassion, forgiveness, acceptance of others, not in your judgments. I can tell when I am simply escaping and when I am truly in solitude.  

Empty Void

 Some of us have an "empty void" inside us.  We try to fill it up with "more."  It can be stuff we buy, things we ingest, changing our outside look, partnering up or sex focus.  None of it works.  These do not touch the insides.  Friendships that are selfless, helping others, meditation, gardening, cooking, walks for absorbing nature can all be what feeds the insides.  I know if I am filling the empty void or not by my attitude to people, places, and situations in my life.  Resentful, judgmental, whining, self-pity, irritable, restless, are all signs that I am still empty.  Each day, I must attend to filling myself with that which will make me free.  And a little happy and joyful.  

Be Found

God cannot be found by our searching as one searches for something hidden.  Such a search assumes we know what God looks like, and only need to look in the right place and there find God.  “Oh, there you are God,” as if we had some concrete notion of God.  Faith does not have an image or mental concept.  Those are the empty things religions argue over, and even kill to prove their concrete image is the correct one.  Prayer, if it goes deep enough, lets go of these infantile images, allows us not to find God but to be found by God.  Then we will come to know ourselves and say, “Oh, here I am.”   

Thanksgiving

I hope you are having a good Thanksgiving.  I am thankful today that people act their natural way.  Actually, my thanksgiving is that I do not get upset that they fail to act the way I want them to act.  It used to bother me that people are the way they are.  They were simply being themselves, while I wanted them to be someone more in keeping with my own program for happiness.  You could call it life on life's terms or acceptance.  The important thing is, I don't get upset within myself, muttering at "imperfections" in others.  My happiness, peace, spiritual growth cannot be waylaid by the behavior of others.  It is my own inside job.  Let people be themselves.  They may have good reasons for that of which I am not privy.   

Living Amends

It is one thing to say, "I am sorry," and it is a good start.  It is a word start.  You need to have an action to follow up the words.  You have to live out the "sorry" in your everyday encounters.  In some circles it is called a "living amends."  I sometimes say I am sorry so that I feel better,  but I think the person to whom I say this might feel better if they see some action, some ongoing manner, change of attitude and behavior on my part.  Then we both know that my apology is coming from the heart which is where the power to change lives.  

Self-Guidance

If my life is not working out on any particular day or time, I find that I have been listening to my own ideas about things.  So, if I keep listening to my own ideas I suspect things are not going to get smoother or easier.  I need to ask for ideas from others who are having a better time of it.  This is why I do not try to live life alone in myself. It can be ok to be with myself in silence and solitude, but not isolated from the wisdom of others in whatever form I can find it.   I give thanks for the wisdom of others.  

Thanksgiving

 It is Thanksgiving week in the USA.  Canada had theirs.  So much could go wrong or right.  Lots of travelers, and you may be one.  Or you are cooking the turkey which happens only once a year, with all the once a year fixings.  Company coming, or you are going to be the company elsewhere, maybe with people you don’t know that well, or maybe don’t even like all that much.  I think it is good to start out with a thank you for the week.  You don’t have to be alone.  Senior Centers and AA have turkey parties on Thanksgiving Day.  So I am going to start out my week with my “Thank You List.”  This way, if the unexpected happens, or chaos I cannot control, I will keep some balance.  I call it emotional sobriety.  

Drop-Out Catholic

 The key to yesterday was “no indifference.”  The recovering person was not indifferent to a drink.  They left it in the hands of “Power.”  So you are the ex-Catholic.  Long ago gave up on holy communion and church stuff.  Made no sense.  Not worth it.  Bunch of hypocrites, and so on.  One day you end up at a mass, maybe a wedding or funeral, or just with a friend or relative.  Same old stuff.  Then comes communion time.  Your aisle starts moving out to approach the altar.  Whoops!  Split decision.  You go along.  But you don’t have indifference.  In the communion line you say to your heart or mind, “None of my past training gives me anything now to believe that this is more than a wafer of bread, a sharing ceremony.  So if it more than that, God, or whoever, you are going to have to make it so to me.”  You cannot conjure up any faith.  You are empty.  Your prayer was a surrender.  You are not angry or bitter.  You reach out and receive the host.  Something happens.  Unexpected?  Well, that is how surrender goes.  

The Return

If you are in recovery or an ex-Catholic, or drop-out Catholic, I have a comparison.  In recovery you go to meetings, read the literature, work steps, help new-comers and be of service.  Then one day, you have a sudden desire to succumb to your addiction.  Example: a drink looks good.  All of the above help does not seem to fill that empty space inside you that the drink will fill.  You suffer the emptiness of no sufficiency in yourself to resist.  So you say, “Power, I am empty.  It is up to you.  I am powerless.”  You surrender.  Something happens, whatever it is, and you don’t take that drink.  You live another day, not on your power, but one not your own.  All of the above program stuff is to get you to that place of knowing your own nothingness and surrendering to a Power that is not you.  Tomorrow, I do the drop-out Catholic stuff.  Bet you can’t wait.  

Liberation

 Prayer needs to move beyond debt-relief.  Yes, we can pray for forgiveness, and mercy for our past or even our present if bad-behavior  crops up.  But at some point we need to have prayers of liberation.  From what? From doubt.  Faith must have some doubt or it is not faith.  As we enter into deeper prayer, beyond the text books and steps of instruction, we will need faith.  But at some point we will wonder if this is making any sense, especially if few around us are on their own deepening path to discover of who they truly are.  So don’t try to escape doubt with activism, busyness, getting things done, being productive in such a way that prayer goes back to a few words of gratitude and then onto things that are simply a cover for fear of your doubts.  When you think nothing is there, you are right.  No Thing is here. You are in the right place.  You are no thing and you are all you need to be.  

The Questioin

 The question I ask myself is not “do I like doing this,” but rather “is this good for me.”  There were or are things I like doing but they were not good for me.  Then I did things I did not like doing, but they were good for me.  You don’t get out of incomprehensible demoralization by asking “do I like this.”  You are too sick to know what is good for you, but sick enough to know you must make a drastic change.  I have found it so.  People ask me if I like cooking in the monastery.  Or do I like cooking at all.  But an answer to that question depends on how my ego is doing.  My ego has had its day of reign.  It was not a very successful ruler.  It was happiest when most self-centered, when self will ran riot.  Then came incomprehensible demoralization.  So I cook for others because it is good for me to do this.  It connects me with the community in a healthy way.  It may at times be boring and at time creative and exciting.  If I do it for praise, then I have slipped off the path of becoming my best self.  

Programs

 AA can teach you how to become a sober person.  It cannot teach you how to become yourself.  That is a journey ultimately done alone in deep meditation.  As a sober person, you will be a better person.  That is fairly simple, since as a drunk you were pretty messy, selfish and so on.  The Steps will give you some structure for praying and for faith.  Not the faith in a god object up in the sky.  It is faith that energizes you to pray without knowing where it is going, but “believing” it is going to good inner discoveries.  You move beyond words of petition, or thanksgiving and even gratitude.  You move to silence and stillness.  AA can help free you from a fear based life you had, so that you can trust the deepening process.  Persons not on such a path may ridicule you as strange or “far out there.”  Or just shrug their shoulders.  Or give you a a blank look if you try to articulate anything of your path.  Eventually, along the way, you may discover what you were trying to escape in drinking.  

Just Pray

 If you want to pray then just pray.  Some people say they are too busy or they have not found the right teacher, the right method, the right place.  But in fact, they do not want to pray because the obstruction is none of the above. It is themselves.  They are imprisoned by a Self that does not want to simply be with itself.  They think that if they leave the “world” and find a structure that will teach and guide them, then they will pray.  Run off to a monastery, retreat center, house of prayer.  Most of these structures, if they are not being renewed, obstruct, rather than instruct.  The structure becomes the obstacle in that it does not challenge or direct you to be with yourself, doing nothing, but praying.  A good structure is one that is person oriented, not structure oriented.  A person must learn to trust praying as themself, and if they do that, with some initiating structure, they will makes mistakes, but will find their truer self, who is the only one who can truly connect with Ultimate Reality indwelling.  

No-Hearer

Solitude is not simply about being away from others, which could be but isolation or avoidance.  No, solitude is more than letting go of company, people, projects.  It is about letting go of that self-reflective part of you.  You become a "NO-HEARER." What?  Think of the wind blowing.  Your "self" is aware of the wind, though you are alone in silence.  You feel the wind, and hear it.  But at some deeper place within you, a solitariness takes over and you no longer are aware of the  hearing self.  You become a no-hearer, though the wind continues to blow.  You are beyond, beneath such awareness, such feelings.  This is where scars of the past receive the spiritual salve that heals.  After this deep solitude passes, you are more connected to the world than you were before.  People are the same around you, but you see them differently.  And so they are not the same.  Who changed?  

Solitude And Fantasy

Fantasy is an escape from solitude.  One cannot be in fantasy unless they are alone and not busy accomplishing something that requires their attention.  If you find your self in fantasy it is a call, an inclination to solitude.  A drink alone can also be an escape.  To be human is to need some  solitude, but our culture does not tell us we need it or what to do with it.  We "feel alone" and don't want that feeling.  We are taught to accomplish, to be with "friends" associates in some endeavor.  At times yes, but not all the time.  Our frantic pace in life, busyness, is in part that escape from finding a way to have the solitude that we need to be fully human.  Even a monk can stay busy and engaged in exterior things, choir prayer, so as to avoid that silence and solitude.  A walk in nature without purpose, that is, without trying to solve some problem, to fix something, can be solitude time.  Meditation without a focus can be solitude.  Alone is not alone.   

Detachment

 The monk does not give up the things of the world as if they were evil in themselves.  The world is good, until we are imprisoned by inordinate attachments to the world.  What is that? It is the slavery to “more.”  Our freedom to love is eclipsed by this want for more.  There is never enough.  This slavery to more is what the monk gives up.  It is what the person in recovery gives up.  It is what one must give up in order to love.  We use or sacrifice created things in the interests of love.  Love is for growth in heart to heart relationship. “More” is about selfishness energized by fear.  It alienates us one from another.   So I have things, but I don’t “possess” things.  Love is a lot of emptying in order to become full.  The heart knows.  

The Scars

There is the story of Jesus healing ten lepers.  Everyone saw these ten as lepers, scarred, to be avoided and isolated.  Jesus saw something else.  He saw a human being worthy of being loved.  He saw beneath the scars.  For me, the scars represent the wounds of a lifetime, often being produced in our growing up years.  We tend to live and confine ourselves to the limits of our scars.  We might even isolate some.  But there is more to each of us than our past.  There is so much potential and it comes forth strong when we are loved, accepted, included and encouraged to see our basic goodness.  So I try to do this with people who are down on themselves, living by their past, ashamed, defeated, hopeless.  I try to love them until they can love themselves.  It was done for me and now I must do it for others.  

The In-Between

 People get down on themselves when they relapse from good behavior.  If they get so filled with shame, guilt, failure, they may not recover.  So I try to remind people about the good they did between relapses.  Even dry, they did better than stark raving drunk!  And any sobriety is better than none.  This may move them toward emotional sobriety, as well as physical.  And if they wish they were dead, I remind them that others have a different opinion and love them now.  Maybe they will love themselves later after doing some positive things "with others."  I don't think it is a good idea to emphasize time sober.  Especially if you have a lot of it.  Emphasize today.  It keeps us all even as we trudge that happy road of destiny.  

The Thought Comes First

I heard people say that they were not even thinking about doing something, but then did it anyway.  I believe that most of the time I am thinking about something before I actually do it.  Example: I go into bar.  I am NOT there to meet anyone.  I have other better things to do.  I am not thirsty.  But I go in for maybe a drink.  I stagger out hours later, the poorer in health, stomach and pocket.  What happened?  Well, at some point in my head the thought came that it would be a good idea to have "another."  As someone said, "You get drunk in your head before you relapse."  Accidents do happen, such as hitting your finger with a hammer while driving in a nail.  But they sure don't happen by walking into a bar if you are a drunk.  Or by going to a liquor store for supplies, "just in case."  Meditation makes me honest.  And I am the richer for it in pocket and heart.   

The Abyss

 In each of us is an “infinite abyss” that nothing but the “Infinite” can fill.  My job, my partner, my living situation, geography, and dog or cat will not fill this abyss.  And being infinite we are always beginners for the next level of depth.  So take the attitude of choosing the lowest place at table.  Always beginning and waiting for the invitation from the Guestmaster, the Infinite, to invite you to move up into the depths of the banquet of Love.  Not always feel good, this entering into the unfamiliar right after you got comfortable.  But the spiritual food becomes more nourishing with each acceptance of the deepening invitation.  Method only gets you to the table.  

No Need Comfort

 Do you meditate to feel comfortable, trying to get to that familiar feeling, that place in meditation in which you feel a sense of peace?  It is a false sense of arrival.  It is complacency.  You do not yet feel a need for God.  You say, “I don’t believe in God.”  Good, because you will have to let go of all those images and thoughts you were given that you now don’t believe in.  We only disbelieve in images of the mind.  No one can disbelieve in nothing or no thing.  So let go of the something you don’t believe in.  While you are at it, let go of your method that gives you peace.  Go into the dreadful depth of surrender to all thoughts and images.  Yes, it starves the mind and imagination.  Then you may be touched by the “Unbelievable.”  And you will hunger with a need you never knew you had.  

Grace-Digging

 My prayer life is a lot of grave-digging prayers.  Some day, my remains will be buried, but I have spent a life-time burying the “I” as I was created to be.  Why?  I wanted to fit in.  I wanted to be a success in the world’s eye.  I wanted to avoid the curse of loneliness, of failure to succeed in the race for being a “winner” as the world, empty of a spiritual-filled center, held out to me.  Why would I walk into a bar filled with strangers and ask for a drink?  Or more.  Why not walk out and feed the reason I walked in there in the first place?  Go do zazen somewhere or sit quietly in a sacred space.  So my prayers are digging up the me that fortunately does not die.  This is the good news.  the breath of Grace. Neglected, but not dead.  I am hopeful.  

Heart Entering

 As is said, you can leave Egypt with your feet, but you cannot enter the Promised Land but with your Heart.  So it is that many a person says, “I am leaving the world,” to take up a spiritual, meditation practice.  They walk away to live alone, become a hermit, monk, spend more time in some quiet place of silence and solitude, but this is all about moving away in a spacial sense.  You cannot walk into Love, Ultimate Reality, Nirvana, Non-Duality.  You must honestly face your inner self with its masks, role-playing in fantasy, and other protective devices that served you in the “world.”  Patience, fortitude, trust.  The process will embarrass you, and humiliate you, before it humbles you.  Many will not wait for the humbling aspect.  Your futility and nothingness.  If you stay with the unveiling of your false self, your self-invention, you will face your nothingness.  And then?  You will be awakened.  No wonder it is called “Fear of the Lord.”

The Compass

 I cannot navigate my way to God using some method as my compass. I come to God by love.  I might feel a sense of peace in a method, a sense of direction, a map or pointer but if there is no love, then I am missing the reason for an interior practice of prayer.  How do I know if I am going to God by love?  I will know by how I relate to people and situations around me, especially where I am not in control.  If I find myself meditating, but living a life otherwise governed by fear, anger, resentment, and escape, I probably have not contacted a Spiritual Power by the path of love.  I remain adrift and maybe lost.  A solution? Find someone, some book, some way that has gotten beyond your misdirection.  Those who have been there can be the best teachers.  

A Cause

 I suspect that someone who is inebriated with a cause or maybe just inebriated, are quite certain of their cause and themselves as they talk with enthusiasm about “the solution to life” or the answer to life.  They are not much in listening to any other opinion or alternate way that might threaten their certainty.  Their solution, filled with animated talk, may be in religion, politics, lifestyle, or relationship.  But I think at the route of this is a living outside of oneself.  That is, being interiorly empty, spiritually lost, bobbing around in a sea of alienation, grasping for meaning.  

Social Skills

When I was growing up, my contemporaries were learning social skills so that they could engage others in social occasions, gathering events.  I did not do that at the time.  I escaped social skill development, but found other methods, crutches, to be in the midst of a social gathering, party.  Even today, I am rather behind.  I went to a going away mid-morning event for one of our old monks who was transferring to another monastery for his health.  I had been directing people where to go to find the venue in the monastery, so when I walked into the room, the party was on with lots of conversations.  I know what I am supposed to do, but I lack the enthusiasm to mix in.  Everyone looks occupied with someone or some eating.  And of course, no one seems to notice I am in the room.  You have to talk loudly to be heard.  I go to the food trays and pick out something for a plate.  Someone asks me why I am wearing a mask.  Apparently, I am the only one.  I say hello to one or two others, a little conversation and then I am ready to go.  I stayed long enough so I don't feel guilty.  I go to my room and enjoy the quiet, the prayer, reading and being with me.  And the Presence.  I don't think I am a loser.  But I avoid a second opinion.   

True Self

 I often use the term, "True Self" in the spiritual journey.  It means finding how to best live life with your gifts and talents.  For a Christian, it would be how best to live the Gospel, as your best self, not as someone else might live it.  If you are in Recovery, it is how to live the 12 Steps, the Traditions and Concepts, as your best self.  You need a spiritual focus for this.  You have to have some meditative life that touches the insides of you to find who you were made to be.  So much teaching is about conforming to some outward program practice.  Do this and do that, as if we are all the same.  The world needs different talents. No one way makes for a whole.  People telling us what to do focus on our exteriors.  Yes, there needs to be some of that especially in the beginning of a formation.  But at some point you have to balance it with an interior practice, learning to listen to an interior voice.  Then the interior influences and adjusts the exterior and you have discovered a "True Self."

Albertine

 Today is the funeral mass in Knoxville, TN for Sister Albertine Paulus.  She lived to be 93 and what energy she had for all these many years.  I am humbled and happy to have known a saint in my lifetime and she is one.  She loved her imperfect church, but its imperfections never daunted her.  Rather it gave her energy and the urgency to push on to make church and world a better place.  And she was fun too.  She worked for ecumenism and interfaith activities when it was not a major focus for others.  She had a diocesan job but was not a bureaucrat or desk person.  And she kept me on my toes when I was pastor there.  Many a time I wanted to coast but she always pushed the pace.  I am blessed that I knew her and was influenced for the better by her.  May she Rest In Peace.   

Therese

 Catholics have a special bond with one another.  It is the mass.  I have Catholic friends who say that they miss me and wish to be closer to me, but then they don’t attend Sunday mass.  The mass is what connects us though we are many miles apart.  We are all saying the same prayers, hear the same readings and offered the same communion.  This is what makes us one body.  It is the spiritual connection.  I have had people say they want to see me and when we are together all they talk about is themselves.  So I remind myself that when I am at mass in this mountain monastery, I am very connected with a body greater than myself, and hopefully, many of my Catholic friends.  

Expectations

 I still get caught up in “being upset” that people don’t do as they should in my judgment.  Then I judge them according to their behavior.  I get upset.  Example: I thought I was in fit spiritual condition.  I walked into the kitchen four hours after I had left it following a meal I prepared for the monks.  They said they would clean up.  They did not do a good job.  The dish-washer was still on from four hours ago, dishes still unwashed, dirty water in the slop bucket, garbage not taken out.  I exploded, fortunately only to myself.  God did hear the swear words and invectives.  Purgatory awaits, if lucky.  I cleaned it all up.  Then I walked outside and the sun came out, the wind died and I relaxed enough to laugh at myself.  God puts up with far worse in me, than I do with others.  My spiritual condition is so out of shape.  Trudge on.  

Conformity

 Some people react to what they think is “conformity” by taking up a negative conformity.  I remember when I was younger, and entering the the years of preparation for being ordained a priest.  I decided that I was not going to conform to the “establishment.”  I was not going to have a trim haircut, clean shaven face, or wear cache pants and plaid shirts when at leisure.  So I begin to look to like the “non-conformists” I saw hanging on the edges of conformity.  I grew long hair, beard, wore tank tops, wild colors in clothing and so on.  I conformed to the non-conformist look.  Who knew what a mess?  Anyway, now I don’t ask myself what a monk is supposed to look like, or what I don’t want to look like.  No more negative conformity, but rather what does God want changed on my insides.  How can I conform to God’s will for me?  It is a lot easier to simply change the outsides and fake that the insides changed too.  

Another Solution

 Prejudice is another solution to loneliness.  We like to stay tribal because it makes us feel that we fit in somewhere, somehow.  My opinions, become truths if I hang around with people who agree with me, look like me and act like me.  Some people use religion to deal with their loneliness.  They go to worship with people like them, with similarities sufficient to make them feel comfortable.  It is tribal.  There are black churches, white churches, conservative and liberal, and what not.  They feel “right” if they are in their tribe.  Opinions become truths.  But when we walk away and go to some privacy away from the tribe, the unease of loneliness can return.  A solution is to get angry with people who don’t agree with us.  We end up talking to the television or the computer screen.  Loneliness: the unattended reality of being human.  

Tribal Defences

 I think that loneliness is what we avoid accepting.  We don’t like to be with ourselves seemingly doing nothing, accomplishing nothing.  So we busy ourselves with activities, shopping, internet, travel.  These activities are not wrong in themselves, but they become useless as a solution to loneliness.  That is the world without much of a spiritual path.  Loneliness is normal.  It is part of our humanness.  If we can sit with this feeling, this reality, we might notice some things hard to swallow, but quite important.  We confront our own nothingness.  I don’t mean this as a value judgment.  You can be very important in your life, but you are only here for a short time and then you die.  As the Buddha might say, we are all heaps of dung!  What good is that?!! On a spiritual path it will show us that we are deeply loved, just for being ourself.  Just for being here now.  It is unconditional.  We don’t have to “do” anything.  Loneliness is the door to our truest worth.  

Business Meeting Prayers

 Don’t make all your prayer time business meetings with God.  Those prayers are all about agenda items, things you want from God, or want God to do for you or others.  Then from your side you promise to do somethings for God, some pious, active, verbal devotion, or some kindness for others.  These are good prayers but they cannot be “all” your prayers,  You need meditation time, where you sit, rest, walk in silence and solitude, letting go of random or purposeful thoughts, with no agenda accept what God might want.  And God might simply want to be with you.  Prayer is not about changing God.  It is about changing you from the insides.  

Day One

I have heard people say "My sobriety date is..." and then they give the date when they last stopped drinking.  But the first day of not drinking is hardly sobriety.  It is your "dry" date.  Sobriety takes a lot of work from that day onward.  It is a bit like someone saying they became a Christian on the day they were baptized.  Baptism does not make a Christian in practice.  It makes a member.  It is entrance into membership.  Becoming a Christian takes a lot of work that many baptized people don't do.  Thus the hypocrisy.  One day of meditation does not make one a buddhist.  It might make one a practitioner of meditation, but becoming a buddhist takes a lot of work besides the sitting.  So I ask myself, "Am I a monk?"  No, not yet.   

Being More

As someone said about economic development, it is about “being more” and not about “having more.”  I would say it is the same with spiritual development.  We trying to focus on getting more stuff to satisfy some sense of lack in or around us.  Instead we pursue the spiritual practice in order to fill up the insides, the space in our heart, that no consumer purchase or vacation or geographic move, or partnering will fill up.  I seem to have less stuff now, but feel fuller with the focus on Spirit.

 

Too Much Too Soon

 When I go into church I like to look at the bulletin.  Some bulletins have very little going on but the service.  But some have a lot going on and I wonder if it is too scattered.  I like the "singular purpose" idea.  Recovery programs and Trappist Monasteries have a singular purpose. AA says it will help you to stop drinking.  Why not more of "save the world stuff?"  Because recovery believes that you are already gifted, but alcohol has gotten in the way.  Their process of recovery reveals all the good potential in you and gives you the confidence to make the world you live in a better place.  But they don't have that as their primary purpose.  Conversion first.  Then the rest will follow.  You go from wet to dry to sober to Wow!  Are any of these blogs a Wow?  Or have I lost my singleness of purpose?  Anyway, I trudge along in the monastery.  

Got That Feeling

 I met people who tell me that they believe something because the dogma makes sense.  They have a kind of intellectual faith.  But do they feel it?  I like the person who said, "I know what I believe because I feel it."  Eventually the intellect, the mind will come around but first the heart must be touched.  In a recovery program, people seem to come back after initial meetings because they "felt good" at the last meeting or meetings.  They are clueless about steps and literature, but they believe what they feel and that keeps them in contact.  Many people believe in their heads a particular religion, or at least have no grave doubts.  But they attend infrequently.  They are not drawn by any deep enough feeling that bonds them to the group or the process.  Welcoming the newcomer and accepting them as they are can go a long way.  Walk the walk.  Later you can talk the talk.  

The How To

 I practice meditation, spiritual reading, checking in with other people on the journey, because I know where I am going...to non-dual transformation with my God.  But I don't know how to get there.  Thus I practice all of the above.  Where I am now, in the journey, I have never been before.  I am not on a spiritual relapse or do over.  Growth is always new.  If it is a repeat, it is not growth.  You have been there before.  So I don't try to do this myself.  I try to hang out with someone, either in person, their writings, who is ahead of me.  They will show me the way.  My Power, God, is the ultimate tracker and so I try to follow.  I know people who got help, got on the journey, followed, and then decided they could go it alone.  They fell back to the "before" the journey, and then things got worse.  I even learned from them.  Don't do this alone.  

As You Are

 If you show up in a house of worship, drunk, hung over, disheveled, smelly, you may very well be asked to leave or at least everyone will avoid you.  If you show up at a recovery meeting like that, they welcome you just as you are. And they talk to you.  I think my God likes the recovery meeting attitude better that the worship place.  I try to keep this in mind whenever my mind begins to go small.  

Finding God

 Someone said, "I cannot find God.  I tried.  I searched around and could not come up with a god."  People have told me that they have even looked inside themselves in some meditation technique, hoping God would show up.  Nada.  I am familiar with this problem and process of search.  But one thing never occurred to me until lately.  I was looking for God inside me, when in truth, I was inside God.  I was surrounded by Power.  So when I close my eyes in meditation, it is dark.  But dark is not empty, just dark.  God is dark?  Yes, but God is a Light in the darkness.  That Light is me!  And you are the Light in your darkness.  

Mistakes

Jus because we make mistakes does not mean that we are mistakes.  If someone says,"You are nothing but a screw up," or "You are nothing but a drunk," well, you are more than that.  When we mess up, we don't become a mess.  Rather we hide our good qualities, even from ourself.  If someone says, "You are no good," this is not true.  You are no good in one area, but good in some other areas.  I was "no good" at drinking, or running fast for that matter.  But I could run slowly for a long time, which is "long distance running."  So I don't drink nor try to run fast.  I could not hit the curve ball in baseball either, but I won't kill myself over it.  Let us accept that we are human beings, not gods.  We have shortcomings and gifts.  Growth is when we recognize both.   

Solitude

 It has been said that, “Solitude is born out of the womb of society.”  That is, one must first learn to live with others, in love, service, acceptance and compassion.  The world of others smooths out our rough edges, educates us to opinions other than our own narrow self.  We learn to be part of before we feel led to be apart.  If one jumps too quickly into what they call “solitude” it may be mere isolation, protection from past hurts, trauma, or the inability to get out of self-centeredness.  Simply living alone does not put one on a spiritual path to growth.  True solitude is a running toward, rather than a running away.  A true solitary has a sense of where they are going, but yet do not know how to get there.  For that, they rely on a power not their own.  

Enough

 What is the release from economic insecurity?  Is it having “more” or something else?  I like the idea that economic security (one of the promises of the recovery steps) is not about having more money and all the anxiety and effort that comes with it, but rather being at peace with what comes and goes.  With money/things/stuff there is never enough it seems.  Being OK with what I have is a good way for me to be, especially now living in a monastery and giving my talks on Zoom.  What comes in, comes in, and what bills/invoices I get, I get.  I like living in the now.  

Despair

 When you suffer a broken heart from some relational situation, do you despair?  That is, “I will never love or do this again because my heart was broken,” type despair?  I have seen it happen to people.  They had the best house, the best career job, the best partner, and then it was gone.  They despaired.  They tried to achieve no longer.  They reached no longer.  When I have been tempted to despair, I think of the Pieta.  What is that?  It is Mary, Jesus’ Mother, holding her dead son in her lap after he is taken down from the cross.  Her heart was broken but she did not despair.  Her life had changed, not ended.  God’s plan was not her plan.  After she buried her son, she has been at God’s plan gradually unfolding in her, ever since.  

Suffering

 I believe that in the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha, all life is suffering.  Suffering in itself has no power.  It does have power if it is caused by love.  Jesus on the cross, for instance, has power because his suffering is out of love in the Christian context.  I delude myself if I want to be loving, but without any suffering or pain.  I would be but a child or adolescent.  The grown up, if not delusional or infantile, knows that love at some point has suffering.  It cost us.  This moment is when we are truly on the spiritual path to becoming all that we are supposed to be.  

Adolescent

 At times I am like an old body with a teenager inside of it, acting out.  The behavior can come out as a mix of fear and arrogance.  Behind all this is a feeling of being alone as in lonely, disconnected from those with whom I am arrogant.  The people around me are not making me happy.  They are not doing their job.  Lest I get too far down this messy road, I try to find ways to connect, to feel "part of."  When I feel part of the monastery, I am at peace, one among others, compassionate, listening.  When disconnected, I am opinionated, judgmental, and "off doing my own thing."  I prefer to act my age, but it can be work and needs a constant program of spiritual renewal.  

Sober Bottom

 I have had what  someone called, “A Sober Bottom.”  My body is ingesting all the right stuff, but my spirit is a mess.  Example: a relationship falls apart, or I have to move when I am not ready, or I lose a job that fulfills me, or I get very sick.  I feel that my life is in ruins.  I have no solutions to my unhappiness.  I am confused and inarticulate when trying to express myself.  This bottom is really a grace hidden behind or beneath my anxiety, fear, broken heart and confusion.  It is a moment of surrender.  Not to what, but from what.  I surrender from trying to figure it all out.  I don’t so much let go.  I am still too attached.  I let go of a solution that depends upon me figuring things out.  An empty space is now within me.  The “Nearness” has some space to be felt in Presence and to be the Power that is not mine.  Why cannot spiritual development be easier?!!!

Co-Dependence

 The monastery community has revealed to me my co-dependence.  That is, my happiness, tranquility and peace depend upon the other monks shaping up and doing things the way they should be done.  I do not control or decide my happiness.  Others do.  I find that on any give day, I am suddenly attacked by co-dependence.  I am out of sorts because some monk did not do “the right thing.”  I know what is right and they did not do it.  Or, on another occasion, I feel ignored, and so get into a jag about being ignored.  My importance depends on what others do, say, think, and so on.  It is tough to be happy and at peace, when I have no say or power to make it happen.  I need a meeting!

The Nearness

 Since so many people have a problem or bad history with the word “God” I think that I will refer to God as the “Nearness.”  Nearness refers to activity and relationship.  My divine power is always near to me, and does not depend on my knowing or recognizing the nearness.  But if I want to enjoy the relationship and benefit better from it, that does depend on me.  What do I do?  I suggest a bit of surrender of all programs for happiness and preoccupations with self-focus.  The world is not all about me, but it is about “us” in relationship of love.  That is a huge leap from bondage to self.  

The Dawn

 Do you need to be noticed or praised when you do something or have a special appearance such as in clothes, face, hair?  Or do you just do it because that is who you are, beautiful.  Lots of people are bummed if they are ignored when they think they are “attractive” in look or deed.  Being dutiful or simply showing up is not enough for them.  They need the praise and recognition.  So when I am feeling that way, I take as my mentor the Dawn.  It shows up dutifully and quite beautifully, many a time, even though most people are too preoccupied to notice, much less praise.  Daily, I show up with my beautiful blogs whether I am noticed or not.  I never know when I might be someone’s light in the morning dawn.  Or not!

Never

 A lot of people make resolutions to not do something or to begin to do something, or change something, and they mean forever.  Never again will I do this, or I will do this for the rest of my life.  I tried that and it just did not work.  Maybe I am weak or basically bad.  Whatever, I decided on the recommendation of some friends, that "forever" is not part of a change in behavior.  I only have to do it for today.  Tomorrow I can make another decision for tomorrow.  It worked for me in amazing change.  I don't have a "forever" resolve, but I do have a "daily" resolve.  I don't ask for big miracles, just littler ones on a 24 hours basis.  

Different

 When I was younger, I did not feel so much that I was different from other people, but rather that I was a bit clueless about how to fit in.  Out of that can come loneliness, even though I might be in a group.  A Now I can usually tell when I am out of sorts in making a connection because I tend to become critical, a bit angry, and blaming others in my mind if not on my tongue.  Whenever these feelings or attitudes come up, lumped often in resentments, I more often catch myself and take action to separate from any bad behavior or turmoil within me.  Most often when things are not to my liking and I go sideways, I realize it is not about others, but about me slipping off the spiritual path of practice. 

Convert Work

One of the reasons that the Catholic Church is so lame about "evangelization" is that for centuries they relied on the state to support the Catholic Church.  In Europe, for centuries, there was no separation of church and state.  Convert the king/queen and everyone better follow.  But the smaller, mom and pop churches, did not have state support.  So they learned to be more agressive about getting members, while not being punished by the government.  In the United States we have separation of church and state.  The Vatican did not like this in our country.  They had no state support and eventually had to figure out how to be more evangelizing.  In the South, a non-Caholic will ask you right off, "What church do you go to?"  Not where do you live or work, but what is your religion.  A Catholic never would do this.  It just is not us.  And if you said you had no church, the person who asked you would invite you to their church.  By and large, Catholics don't go looking for you.  They wait until you come to them and then they put you in convert classes.  

Prayer Agenda

 Do you pray to try and get your god or power to make the world conform to your personal plans or wants?  I find that I do this at times. The shortcomings of this agenda in prayer is that I focus on the world out there being changed and not on my change.  I try now, more often, to open myself, call it surrender if you will, to God's plan to change me to become my better self.  I don't quite know what that will look like, but I believe the better me will be good for myself and those around me.  So it is a prayer of faith in an unknown future.  God has a plan, or opinion, of how I am supposed to be.  It is good for someone like me to always get a second opinion about my future.  Keeps me from letting self-centeredness, or bondage to self, ruin the future for me.  In recovery, it is called, "turning your will and your life over to your Higher Power."

Work The Solutions

 I go to meetings of people who are working on spiritual solutions to life's problems.  I try not to present old problems at the meeting for which I received a previous spiritual solution.  Rather I try to use the advice given to me to work on the problem after the meeting.  If I bring up the same ole mess each meeting it is because I am not working the solution.  I am just using the meeting to "feel better."  OK, but that is not the same as spiritual growth or becoming mature and grown up.  It is me just being lazy and whining.  I minimize my time in gatherings where there is a preponderance of old issues and hardly any solutions offered.  I prefer to step into solutions, but it takes work.  

Morning Choices

 I make a choice each morning to do such things as a fresh cup of coffee, spiritual reading and meditation.  Some stretching too.  Why all this?  I am not getting holy.  But I have come to realize that being happy each day is a choice most of the time.  Yes, there is sudden bad news, and illness and so on, but as best as I can in response to life on life's terms, happy is a choice.  Some people drink to be happy.  That is a short-term solution at best.  Some have sex but that in itself does not make them happy.  Happy is a choice that comes from insides energy, heart energy.  Feed the heart and the choice is easier.  The heart cannot digest selfishness, or resentment, or a general bondage to self.  Someone said that the choice to be happy each day is to "dress in spiritual armor."  It is an armor that does not weigh me down but frees me up.  Light armor in the summer of course. 

My Opinion

When I say something as an observation, or judgment, or solution, I say, "But that is just my opinion."  Behind it is what I really mean.  Everyone is entitled to hear my opinion.   I usually say my opinion in a group of people for all to hear.  I do it with false humility, because on my insides I am anything but humble.  My blogs are my opinion on many subjects.  I will work on the inside humility today.  But I like doing my opinion blogs still.  

Tact

 I tend to be critical.  Someone told me how to do this with "tact."  It is the art of "telling someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip."  I do ponder this advice.  It does soften a critical nature, while at the same time not letting some bad behavior go unmentioned or ignored.  I just have not quite figured out how to do that.  But it is creative.   I do recall a waitress telling an over weight guy who was ordering a lot of sugar sweets, that he must like heaven because he seems to want to get there sooner rather than later.  He gave her a big tip and went veggie.  What can I say?

Inside Defeat

For an addict, when the head tells them they cannot do this anymore, they agree and then keep up the bad habit.  If the body tells them, they say "I will stop," and then they keep going downward physically with addictive stuff.  It is only when the insides, the heart, soul, decide that you are defeated, do you have any chance.  Why?  Because the addiction is basically a spiritual problem, manifested in crazy mind and body.  So the solution has to be a spiritual one that addresses the inside need for connection.  "I am lonely," says the addict with that feeling in the body and mind, but until the feeling goes deep into them, a heart loneliness, there will be little chance of recovery.  The solution is love, and only the heart knows how to do this unselfishly.  Otherwise, one remains at the jumping off place, until they jump.  

 

Importance

 I was told that I am being moved from my office in Boulder that I have had for the past 17 years.  It is nicely done up for me and sufficient for my importance.  The new office is a bit of a dump.  Actually it was where stuff was dumped waiting for someone to come for it.  I thought, “Don’t they know how important I think I am?”  Isn’t that the truth about me.  Anytime there is a change and I don’t like it, I think about my self-importance.  No one else seems to share my sense of self-importance.  So I get to practice acceptance, downsizing ego, and a bit of humility, not bad things to add to the spiritual path I am supposed to be on.  

Belief

 It puzzles me that the same person who says religion is all of made up stuff, fantasy, wishful thinking, or a crutch, is often the same person who has complete faith in a media news service, without any investigation of the facts.  This person criticizes God followers as simpletons who believe something simply because someone says it is so.  Yet this same person believes something is so because some news pundit says it is so.  Getting to the truth is hard work inside and outside religion. Many of us don't care to make the effort to get at truth.   We simply like to be fed what usually fits us at the moment.  Infallibility seems to be coming into fashion in the media.  The new religion.  

Taste Buds

Just like the tongue, the heart has taste buds too.  Many people have no sense of a spiritual dimension to life.  Life is all about stuff of the five senses, and what the mind can comprehend.  This is a narrow view because the heart has not been fed and spiritual food to awaken it, or feed it.  When the heart tastes the spiral dimension of prayer, surrendering love in service to others, in art, music, dance, a beautiful nature scene, we begin to "see" what was hidden from us, or denied by us.  I don't try so much to find God each day, but rather to feed the taste buds of my heart.  I have a better view of the day when I do this early as a daily practice.   

Ready?

 I don't care to listen to people with whom I disagree or who have an opinion, belief, practice, not my own.  I simply say they are wrong and tune them out or dismiss them.  Why?  Well, I am not ready to change at that moment.  I am not open to anything new or different at that moment.  I may be in a meeting with someone(s) and someone says, "Do this or that."  I am not ready at the moment to do this or that.  So I tune them out, or say, that is not for me.  I listen when I am more ready for change.  I don't say, "Oh I am ready for change, so will listen to you."  It is more like I simply find myself listening, being open, curious, adventuresome.  Of course, sometimes I change because I have to.  My way was not working, and I was the last to know it.  

Synodality

 The new buzzword from the Pope, Francis I, is "synodality."  Say what?  The root of the word is syn-odos which means "a shared journey."  Nowadays in our culture we seem to want to share journeys or anything else only with people just like us.  We don't care to engage the "other side" of an opinion or belief that we have.  We label people from a distance and remain ignorant because we never engage them, never listen to them.  The pope is not interested in professional disciples, ordained or otherwise, so much as he is interested in everyone getting involved in issues of our world, such as climate, refugees, food shortages.  He is not much for "us versus them."  This is why he stays open for engaging Russian and Chinese leaders of government.  Synodality wants all people involved in decisions, not just a government hierarchy.  Unfortunately, the hierarchy is not so much interested.  Separation preserves power.  Change threatens it.  

Resistance

 A main reason that we don't become our better or best self is that we settle for routines, the familiar, rather than something new, or "the unknown."  NEW and FEAR too often go together.  We remain like children who resist the parent's entreaty to try something new.  We hold onto stuffed bears and dolls way past their prime.  Comfort is the cure for fear.  But comfort is so often a short term solution.  A drunk walks into a room filled with strangers, and seeks comfort in drink.  They get comfortable.  And then oblivion.  Recovery is change.  So is conversion.  So few pursue either.  

Routines

 The body does not like change.  Why? It interferes with its routines.  The body gets comfortable in routines and simply resists change.  When you resist a move to a new place, the reason is that you are used to your routines.  The mind and heart may say the move is good, but the body resists.  In the new setting, after the move, you are not comfortable until your body finds routines it likes or can accept.  For many of us, to accept our cross is to accept change when our routines are taken away from us.  That is why I admire the fisherman who followed Jesus, as well as the women.  Their routines were all upset.  That may be why wisdom figures tell us to let go of everything if you are going to make a complete change.  There is no such thing as partial recovery from anything.  

Surrender

One of the things that Christianity got right is "surrender."  I never found a spiritual fit path that worked without some surrender.  A lot of surrender.  In Christianity, Jesus is supposed to be God.  He does not look like a god.  He does not look like what we think God would look like if there is a God who showed up.  Jesus, the blue collar carpenter.  Jesus on the cross.  But that is the point of Christianity.  God surrendered whatever God-ness is, and became a simple human being. But many Christians, though they say they believe it, don't really want to do the surrendering.  They are like most of us, trying to get more and become more, with power, looks, control, and so on.  Bill W got it right.  When he surrendered he was a penniless failure.  Like Jesus on the cross.  Abandon yourself!  Scary.

Never Give Up

Evil never gives up.  If it does not defeat me today, it will go at me tomorrow or soon enough.  So I can never give up the relentless effort to avoid evil winning out.  The battlefield  is my faults, bad habits, inclinations to mess up, laziness (sloth), false pride and just the inability to remember my imperfections are not in the past.  The good thing I did yesterday for my wellbeing was a good thing for yesterday. No resting on yesterday since evil is relentless.  I too must be relentless.  Some days, I have self-pity.  I don't want to make the effort to be happy.  "I am ok," I tell myself.  "I don't have the time or the energy to practice a fit spiritual condition, much less a physical one," I tell myself.  Bingo!  Evil wins and I will know it within a short time.  And others will know it sooner than I will!

Who Knows?

 Evil knows that God exists.  Otherwise, evil would be quite happy because it would have no goodness or love to battle.  Evil is never happy.  How do I know?  Because when we find ourselves in the midst of evil, after its disguise comes off, we are never happy.  Alcohol is a poison.  It messes up the gut and the brain.  Science will tell you that.  Alcohol is not evil.  It just is.  The disguise is when you think it is a good thing to drink a bunch of it.  That is the evil.  You are happy, until you are not.  Evil is most happy when you are dead from what you thought would make you happy, the solution.  Many of us act on what we think are good ideas, until they are not.  Then we are miserable.  The idea was neither good nor bad in itself.  Evil disguises itself as making us think the idea is a perfect fit for ourself.  When we are miserable enough, evil shows up with the ha ha.  I now try to get second and third opinions of people who have more experience than I and who might have learned from their mistakes before I make mine.  

The Unexpected

 Before Covid came along, and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of us thought that we had "enough" of whatever we needed to live comfortably.  That is, we had our health and could afford our groceries and fuel for cars and homes.  Then stuff happened.  Stuff is that thing never foreseen or planned.  It seems to show up just when we think we have found a solution to our economic or health lifestyle.  So I have stopped trying to defeat the unexpected.  I am grateful that I have what I have for today.  I don't think of the future as worse or better, but rather as different from the present and I have no control over the unexpected.  I do what I can for what I know.  I am grateful for the day and for what I do have.  And humble enough to know I am in need of living life on life's terms.  

Enough

What is "enough."  So often, whatever it is, is NOT enough.  There is too often, the "more" factor.  Example: a fellow has a field that is producing a good crop.  It is sufficient for him, until it isn't.  He decides that he needs a tower.  His "more" is the fear of someone stealing from him when no one is looking.  Fear is one of the emotions that can trigger "more."  He starts the tower, only to find out that he does not have enough of whatever to complete the project.  He has half a tower, and his desire to hold on to what he has makes him look foolish.  Another example is the person who in fact is going to lose a good portion of what he has.  A ruler has lost a war to another ruler.  His fear is that he is going to lose "too much."  Limit his loss.  So he seeks peace terms.  But again, he too does not have enough to sue for peace.  He lost the war.  His enemy can take it all.  Better to have acceptance when defeated, and see what is available.  Better to show gratitude than a false sense of power.  Humility is what is missing in both cases.   Tomorrow's blog will continue this "enough" theme.

Stuff Happens

 I try to plan my day to accomplish some things.  But once I get in my car I enter into the world of government road crew work.  I have learned to accept this and look on the positive side.  Example: I left early before daylight, to drive from the Denver area (Boulder) to the Monastery along highway 70 West.  My plan had a timeframe.  It assumed a non-reality, a road crew free highway.  Out the window, went my time frame.  Major work was being done in the middle of the night around the Continental Divide.  I came to a dead stop, turned off my engine, and sat.  I did not get upset at my plans going off kilter.  I was traveling with gratitude.  I began to list the gratitude I had for several things.  The highway is smooth because the government budgets to work on it.  There was no accident or fender bender in our group of vehicles.  And there are a lot of trucks, delivery trucks, because so many people, like me, order stuff online now.  And so on.  It became a stress free ride.  Gratitude makes a good companion in travels.